The issue was originally sparked when some Hearthstone players found they couldn't compete in an event at Assembly Summer 2014 because of their gender. Photo: Blizzard Entertainment

Of particular concern to many was that some events at Assembly Summer 2014, including a tournament of Blizzard's popular free-to-play card game Hearthstone, were only being held for one gender, meaning women were blocked from participating entirely.

When challenged, the FeSF stated that they were not happy with the situation, but they were restricted by the rules put in place by the international body, the IeSF.

The decision was made "in accordance with the International e-Sports Federation's (IeSF) tournament regulations, since the main tournament event is open to male players only", confirmed event adminstrator Markus Koskivirta. "This is to avoid possible conflicts (e.g. a female player eliminating a male player during RO8) among other things."

The problem faced by FeSF was that, since their event was a qualifying round for international competition governed by IeSF, they too had to employ IeSF's gender divisions. If they were to hold a mixed-gender event and a female competitor were to win, then she would not be able to progress to the international level of the league.

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"We would also like to point out that the Finnish eSports Federation is currently lobbying for the equal rights of male and female players in the IeSF tournaments," Koskivirta added.

IeSF, for their part, claimed that the gender-segregation was part of its efforts to both promote e-sports (high-level competitive gaming) as a legitimate international sport, and also to promote female participation in eSports.

A spokesperson for IeSF told PC Gamer that most "legitimate" sports around the world are divided into male and female leagues, and cited the example of chess being gender-segregated. PC Gamer's Phil Savage countered this claim by pointing out that while chess has a separate female league, "women can enter the World Chess Championship and compete against men. Just ask Judit Polgár."

IeSF also said that having a female-only league increases the visibility of female cyber-athletes and promotes their participation in events that can often seem to be dominated by men.

A day after the incident first began creating headlines in the video games press, the IeSF changed their policy.

"IeSF shall have two event categories: 'Open for All' events and events that are reserved for women. The events which were initially set aside as the male division will now be open to all genders, and the events which were initially set as the female division will remain as they were," they said in a statement.

"One of our goals with e-sports is to ensure that there's a vibrant and also inclusive community around our games," said a spokesperson for the Hearthstone publisher. "We do not allow the use of our games in tournaments that do not support this, and are working with our partners to ensure they share the same goal."

The timing of the statements from IeSF and Blizzard suggests that discussions between the two had encouraged the sudden policy change.

IeSF's motivation for the original rules was reportedly inspired by a push to gain Sport Accord membership, essentially meaning that e-sports would be officially recognised as a sport. This would then open up opportunities such as sporting scholarships for cyber-athletes.

However, Sport Accord membership requires that applicant bodies actively promote female participation, and IeSF decided that this would be most easily accomplished with gender-specific competition.

The irony, then, is that what appeared initially to be sexism supposedly arose from a desire to encourage female cyber-athletes to participate and to raise their public profile.